I had an interesting experience yesterday with my 3-year-old daughter. We were at my folks' house and she was playing with my old Miss Piggy puppet. However, I could not get my daughter to call the puppet Miss Piggy. Instead, she kept calling her Mrs. Piggy. Which got me thinking - will her generation eliminate the title "Miss" from our language?
Americans are increasingly becoming less formal in their speech. Generation Xers and Millennials don't use formal titles very often - especially for women - unless that person is a teacher or someone's mom. I have a hard time remembering the last time I heard someone call a woman "Miss" anything (except Miss America).
I did a little digging on the title Miss and it is a shortened version of Mistress that was used in the 17th Century. In the 21st Century, Mistress means something a lot different than "single woman."
In the 70s, a lot of women stopped using both Miss and Mrs in favor of Ms. Then it was a political statement. I think we can thank the Boomers for doing this. I believe a woman's marital status is no longer her defining quality.
6 comments:
Interesting idea. I think you might be on to something. In this day and age, having a separate determiner depending on marital status, just for one gender, seems outdated. Do you think we could lose the Mrs. and just have all women be Ms.?
http://40-nowwhat.blogspot.com/
Miss, Mrs, Ms....they are ALL better then "MAAM"....
:O
Or how about just first names? My mother and her friends never insisted I use "Mrs." I either didn't call them anything, or by first names.
However, my neighbor -- in her 70s -- made it be known she did not like it when my son called her by her first name.
I can see why you kept the puppet. The resemblance is uncanny! Do you have a French boyfriend?
Hey Anon., your remark about French boyfriends and a Miss Piggy resemblance is incredibly rude. Those of us who are French might take offense at your insinuation that the French are frogs - not to mention the big insult you make to GenXer Suzanne. Mom was right on this one, though: "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." And dad would have this to say: "That's someone's daughter you're talking about."
Really - if you're going to be that rude, you could at least do the rest of us the courtesy of signing your name. But then - that's the kind of chickenshit thing that you probably like about the Internet. Lets you be rude and be anonymous all at the same time.
And while that may not be a nice thing to say, at least it's truthful.
Kathy English
http://www.momcrusades.blogspot.com
@Kathy - that was incredibly sweet to come to my defense (and that of the French people)! I'm not deleting the comment, because I'm a believer in live by the sword, die by the sword (even if the other person is clearly a douche). Plus, I'm assuming my resemblence to Mademoselle Pig is because of my fabulous long blonde hair ;)
To my other readers, you should really check out Kathy's blog (http://www.momcrusades.blogspot.com). I'm more than a little proud that I was one of the first to encourage her to start it - she has a great perspective and is a brilliant writer.
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